As I was mowing my yard, for what I hope is the last time of the season, I couldn’t help but curse the devastation that has been wrought by the moles that have slowly and insidiously taken over. Every time my mower bogged down on another pile of dirt, all I could think was “egh. damn yard. damn moles.” At this point, I’m pretty sure that my family and I are living in the moles’ yard. We’re the squatters. They’re the ones that are here to stay.
Every time I mow, I think about how my yard has gotten to such a state. When I noticed the first mole hill 3 years ago I was a new home owner, and had never really cared for a yard before. So, I plead ignorance for my lack of action taken that first year. “Surely they can’t cause that much damage… surely they’ll leave on their own.” Inexperience and naivete. Season 2 was when I realized that I really should have done something the year before. At that point, the single family that had made its home in my lawn had given birth to at least 3 families. Now, I not only had the scars of the previous seasons activity, I had many more active villages of trails and mounds. In frustration, I began to try to dispel the rodents. I would place the traps at what I thought were the active holes, only to come out morning after morning to unsprung traps, and a new set of trails a few feet away. At this point, I couldn’t tell the difference between active trails and old scars. After a few attempts, I quit. A sense of shame stirred up in me every time I pulled into my driveway to see the damage that my inaction had allowed. This experience of shame doubled when memories of my dad, a former employee of TrueGreen lawn care, and his immaculate yard came to mind. “egh…damn yard…damn moles.”
Now, here we are at season 3. By this point, the moles have several cities connected by a complex set of roadways, a governing body, and an airport. But, with newfound resolve, I began to try to drive the moles out of my yard. (Consider this my apology to my neighbors if they end up housing some mole-refugees.) I’ve seen some success, but about the time I drive one family from my yard, I find another one strongly embedded up against the house. It would take $40 worth of repellant to drive that one family out of my yard, and my traps appear to be useless against them. And, even if I spend the money, time and effort, I don’t know that I have the knowledge and expertise to see success. Though I hate to say it, I may have to pay a professional to take care of the job that I cannot do myself. But, that’s even more expensive and will cost me my pride as a strong, knowledgeable, suburban homeowner as well. And so, hopelessness sets in. “Damn moles.”
As I mowed around the mole hills, I found my thoughts going away from lawn care to marriage care. I realized that the way I’ve dealt with the moles in my yard was an apt analogy for how many of us (myself included) deal with the difficulties and struggles in our marriages. Inexperience keeps us from dealing with the issues early and head-on. The seasonal nature of how we tackle the problems that rise up in our marriage: moments of great intensity followed by seasons of resignation. The emotional dynamics of hopelessness and shame leading to paralysis are similar as well.
Consider the following example: a newly married husband notices how his wife pulls away from him when he touches her, but has no clue as to why. “Maybe she’s just getting used to this whole living together thing. Maybe it’s just me. Surely it will get better.” His wife, on the other hand, noticed her husband’s tendency to spend a lot of time on the computer playing on-line video games even when they were dating. “All guys play video games. It was his way of connecting with friends.” Unaddressed, the problems go underground. Seasons pass. The struggles remain. But by now they have done more and more damage and caused increasing pain. Fearing the rejection from his wife, the husband has quit pursuing his wife physically. With this physical withdrawal comes an emotional withdrawal. Now, the husband has a “reason” to spend all of his time with his on-line community. The couple now fights about her “frigidity” and his “game playing” but little progress is made on tackling the issues themselves.
It is at this point that couples start doing something about the issues. They read the books. They go to the retreats. All are great things. But there’s now so much pain built up, and old scars that mar the marriage, that it’s hard to find out where the active “problems” are to address at all. This is where couples find themselves having the same “conversation” about the problem(s) over and over again; chasing mole trails, if you will. Now shame kicks in and makes it even more difficult to love each other well. The couple thinks, “My parents’ marriage was nothing like this…how could this have happened to us?” Or, “This is just like my parents’ marriage and I swore I would never have a marriage like this.” The battle between hope and despair rages. “Can it ever be good (again)? Is it worth the effort/pain/anger/sadness?”
Please hear this encouragement: It IS worth it. But, if your dream of what marriage was meant to be, of what your marriage could be, is worth holding onto, it will require you to fight. Whatever season of your marriage you are in, whether you are just noticing the mole hills and fearing that bringing it up would be making a mountain out of it, or if you are years down the road and have seen and felt the devastation these undealt with struggles have caused, it is worth fighting for your marriage. I’m a huge advocate of addressing issues earlier rather than later. In my practice, I have never seen proactivity or addressing something “too early” end a marriage, but I have seen inactivity and avoidance wreck havoc.
Regardless of what season you are in, enlisting a community to fight with you is key. Hearing from friends that you are not the only couple that is struggling, that you are not “too far gone,” and that you are not alone is vital. Unspoken shame keeps so many couples from seeking the help they need. You are not alone. As part of this community, you may consider enlisting a counselor to help you find the active issues and help you tend to the wounds and scars these struggles have wrought in your hearts. But above all, please do not let another season pass before addressing the hurt, sadness, and hopelessness in your marriage. Though there will be a cost to the fight, the possibilities of intimacy, joy, and peace are worth it.
